- Describe five businesses or nonprofits that have been created in my field.
There are a number of different business models and business types in the cybersecurity field. There are large government contractors such as MITRE that have a very large operation that is equipped to supply the government with many different skill sets and services. For cybersecurity specifically, MITRE provides a great deal of services to the government and provides many resources to the greater company such as their public CVE database. The second type of cybersecurity company is one that provides penetration testing services such as Rapid7. Companies like Rapid7 offer many different penetration testing services for businesses to gain insight into their security infrastructure. There are also IT management companies such as Layer9. Layer9 is a general IT management company that offers businesses a low barrier of entry into technology and systems management. These companies focus on systems management and security to ensure their clients have a quality experience. Another type of cybersecurity company is the software companies such as McAfee. McAfee is an antivirus tool that offers customers a safer experience shielding them from most viruses. The primary focus of the company is to improve the software and protect clients through that software. Finally, there are the companies in cybersecurity that encompass everything mentioned above. These are companies like Palo Alto Networks and Microsoft. These companies are very diverse, but they typically offer an all in one experience when it comes to cybersecurity and systems management.
- What is your overall perspective on the entrepreneurship experience?
Entrepreneurship is often daunting when you think of the Steve Jobs types that work to their very last dollar to create a revolutionary product that changes the world. This just isn’t the actuality of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is simply a mindset and an attitude towards the ideas that an individual has. Entrepreneurship isn’t necessarily about risking every last dollar to your name to make your idea come to fruition. The entrepreneurship experience is not just about having ideas. Entrepreneurship is about coming up with actionable plans based on ideas and being able to communicate those ideas with others. It is about knowing when to follow through and when to drop an idea. The overall entrepreneurship experience can be extremely beneficial as long as an individual understands the intent. Becoming hyper fixated on ideas can feel entrepreneurial, but is often just unhealthy and financially draining.
- How did entrepreneurship prepare or not prepare you to be a competitive candidate for vacant positions?
Entrepreneurship as a mindset can help an individual understand their worth and their contribution to a business. For me, entrepreneurship helps me analyze my contributions to my workplace. I develop a lot of useful products for my workplace and having an entrepreneurial mindset allows me to take in how my ideas improve the workplace. This gives me insight on how to better improve and how to implement these ideas on a larger scale. I am currently looking for a job more in my industry, and I have definitely been deflated by the current job market. I hope to continue to use entrepreneurial ideas to better market myself in this job search.
- What suggestions do you have to improve the experience?
I am unsure if I have any suggestions to improve this experience. I had a great time participating in this class and I am proud of the idea that my group came up with. We had a great experience collaborating on the ideas for the product and I hope that the product will speak for itself. The only suggestion I would have is a greater focus on the elevator pitch for the ePortfolio. The pitch is only mentioned in the ePortfolio final assignment and it snuck up on most of us participating in the class.
- What’s next for you?
The next steps for me are to finish my final semester this fall. After this fall I am going to make a final decision on the career path that I pursue. I have had many opportunities over the past few years and nearing the end of school is certainly scary, but I am reluctantly excited. I hope to go far in my career and I hope to be able to have a positive impact on the industry and society as a whole. I have enjoyed this class and I hope everybody will have a great rest of their summer.